If you lick your envelopes, would you reconsider this?

Why You Should Never Lick Envelopes
What you don't know, wont hurt you, but this one it sure is worth knowing. I used to work for an envelope company. Our plant supervisor used to work in the Chicago plant and told us not to lick the envelopes because they would often find dead rats at the bottom of the glue barrel (after thousands of envelopes had been glued and shipped).
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I work in a factory and we have 2 employees who used to work in an envelope factory. They told me that when the machine jams up, they use whatever water is handy to thin out the glue. This includes water that they just mopped the floor with. Since then, I've avoided licking envelopes!
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A woman was working in a post office in California. One day she licked the envelopes and postage stamps instead of using a sponge. That very day the lady cut her tongue on the envelope.
A week later, she noticed an abnormal swelling of her tongue. She went to the doctor, but they found nothing wrong. Her tongue was not sore or anything.
A couple of days later, her tongue started to swell more, and it began to get so sore, that she could not eat. She went back to the hospital, and demanded something be done. The doctor took an x-ray of her tongue and noticed a lump. He prepared her for minor surgery. When the doctor cut her tongue open, a live cockroach crawled out! There were roach eggs on the seal of the envelope. The egg was able to hatch inside of her tongue, because of her saliva. It was warm and moist. This is a true story reported on CNN.

I have never licked enevelopes as I never new if they were clean and besides I didn't like the taste of the glue. I have often licked a postage stamp, but after reading your post, I will never ever do it again. I think I am going to be ill for the remainder of the evening but thanks for posting it, as now I will be on my gaurd in future.

Well, I have been licking envelopes forever. Most of the time, the taste isn't bad. Everyonce in a while, they do taste yucky. I have never heard of anything like that. Maybe I should re-think licking the envelopes. I am glad I already had breakfast before reading this, and I hope I forget about it by the time lunch rolls around.

I'm sure there are millions of stories like these around the world - when putting anything on or in my body I try not to think about where it was before me otherwise I would most likely never eat again except for the few veggies I grow in my yard each year.

I think I'm going to be sick. That's just soo disgusting. I ALWAYS lick my envelopes before sending them out. From now on, I'm going to just tape them or something, because that's just not safe anymore.

Just do what my hubby does...I used to think he was funny, but I will do it too...I am so grossed out, I can barely drink my coffee...and I was telling my hubby and he is too...he didn't want me to finish the story, because he is making his espresso...lol

URBAN LEGEND!!!! It's just not true. I wish people would do quick searches on any urban legend site before sending me these emails lol. There's bunch of different variants on this one, think there was even one about rat pee on the top of pop/soda cans. It's just not true. Go to any search engine and type envelope licking urban legend.
http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/cockroaches/a/fear_of_licking.htm
Or look at this link. And also, there's no poisonous spiders living under toilet seats killing women....
.

Scary, very scary, I have to say I never ever lick envelopes, I always get the self-sealers, either you take the tab off and it automatically sticks, or they are gummed so you just close them up. If the gum doesn't work or it's not self seal then I use sellotape. Thanks er for sharing! I'm sure people will think twice now about licking envelopes.

I have heard before that licking envelopes is not healthy and can be bad for you. I have been buying envelopes that have a sealable flap so you do not have to lick it shut. I have also used glue or paste to seal the envelope shut as well. When I was doing volunteer work years ago, they had us sealing envelopes with glue and not licking. Thank you for sharing this with everyone and letting them know too. :-)

Okay I can see some gross water getting into the glue, and many times rat droppings can get into stuff like that, but the cockroach thing is false. Never believe what you read/hear on the internet without checking out snopes.com. Go there (I can't paste) and type in licking envelopes in the search and it is the first to come up.

Well if you thought about stuff like that too much you would never do anything would you? Personally I think some envelopes taste quite nice although the gum on others is yuck! Not that I lick envelopes that often but I'll probably still continue to do so although the one about the roaches is hideous!

Oh gross!!! Well, that is enough to make me stop licking envelopes forever. I have been told by several people not to lick envelopes, but I never really knew the reason. After reading your post, I understand why they would tell me not to. Thanks for the information.

I had heard the last one about the roach. I haven't been using lick and stick for a while but if I have to I use a sponge to wet them down or put water on my finger tip to wet down the glue. If it doesn't have to be sealed I usually just use tape and tape them shut.